Water Column Backscatter Working Group

The Catalyst: Seeding Fund project will enhance our capability to characterize and manage the natural capital held in the ocean water masses using marine acoustic technology.

We have established a multidisciplinary research consortium of internationally recognized experts in marine acoustics and geophysics, spatial analysis and ocean environmental science, from New Zealand (NIWA), France (Géosciences Rennes/CNRS, IFREMER), Germany (GEOMAR) Australia (IMAS) and the U.S. (UNH-CCOM).

We will develop data acquisition workflows and processing methodologies for quantifying and characterizing water features such as bubbles, oil droplets, suspended particulates, vegetation, fresh water and targeted oceanographic features [e.g., internal waves & thermoclines] collected by modern echosounder.

Our first workshop was held in Rennes France from the 24th to the 28th of April 2017- highlights of the workshop will be found in our first report, coming soon.

We wish to extend our invitation for collaboration to the Geohab community. Please see the 2017 Geohab Catalyst Project presentation here.

For more information about the water column backscatter working group please contact Dr. Geoffroy Lamarche (Geoffroy.Lamarche@niwa.co.nz ). There is also an active project on Research Gate, please follow the project for updates.